4 ms·

I must be missing something. I see zero in-results ads and page after page of what appears to be actual conference listings.

civilized 4y ago
I got one ad at the bottom. Everybody seems to be getting something a little different. We must be getting heavily A/B-tested on. Thanks, fancy Google statisticians, quantitative analysts, data scientists, or whatever you're called these days.
- lumost 4y ago
  They may also be adjusting the number of ads they show based on the value of the viewer in the ad marketplace…
  - drc500free 4y ago
    Yep, this is a thing. I manage a similar product. It determines if ads should appear in the funnel based on the expected likelihood and value of conversion the expected likelihood and value of an ad click. I’d be surprised if google isn’t doing something similar.
    - lumost 4y ago
      Do you find that this kind of optimization hurts retention? I'd expect that a decrease in retention rates would decrease long-term revenue - but that an A/B test would show a revenue increase as measuring retention will never hit statistical significance relative to revenue on a 2 week test.
      - drc500free 4y ago
        It's a good question, and definitely a dynamic we see sometimes in other parts of the marketplace - all though that's usually more driven by market dynamics than consumer behavior (e.g. publishers over-optimizing something that only works until the advertisers update their bidding strategy). In this specific case our clients are generally insurance companies, and the traffic in their funnel is not made up of current customers. The point of the predictive model is to identify people who aren't going to convert, so retention isn't relevant. Passing those consumers on to competitors who are a better fit helps the carrier recoup money, and helps the consumer find a plan they're more likely to buy. In terms of re-shopping down the road (customer lifetime could average anywhere from 3 months to 5 years from now, depending on the carrier), people generally don't visit insurance websites enough to build any strong opinion about what the UX was like - so as long as it's not spammy like a travel site, it's a fairly fresh game every time they shop for a policy.
worldmerge 4y ago
Do you have an Adblocker on? I just loaded the page with it on and there were legit results. Turned it off and all the page was Ad listings. Edit: seems to be intermittent.
xyst 4y ago
same, I get “scholarly articles” related to “cancer genetics” in addition to conferences edit: have setup a VPN + Pihole dns server + ad blockers on devices themselves

civilized 4y ago

I got one ad at the bottom. Everybody seems to be getting something a little different. We must be getting heavily A/B-tested on. Thanks, fancy Google statisticians, quantitative analysts, data scientists, or whatever you're called these days.

lumost 4y ago
They may also be adjusting the number of ads they show based on the value of the viewer in the ad marketplace…
- drc500free 4y ago
  Yep, this is a thing. I manage a similar product. It determines if ads should appear in the funnel based on the expected likelihood and value of conversion the expected likelihood and value of an ad click. I’d be surprised if google isn’t doing something similar.
  - lumost 4y ago
    Do you find that this kind of optimization hurts retention? I'd expect that a decrease in retention rates would decrease long-term revenue - but that an A/B test would show a revenue increase as measuring retention will never hit statistical significance relative to revenue on a 2 week test.
    - drc500free 4y ago
      It's a good question, and definitely a dynamic we see sometimes in other parts of the marketplace - all though that's usually more driven by market dynamics than consumer behavior (e.g. publishers over-optimizing something that only works until the advertisers update their bidding strategy). In this specific case our clients are generally insurance companies, and the traffic in their funnel is not made up of current customers. The point of the predictive model is to identify people who aren't going to convert, so retention isn't relevant. Passing those consumers on to competitors who are a better fit helps the carrier recoup money, and helps the consumer find a plan they're more likely to buy. In terms of re-shopping down the road (customer lifetime could average anywhere from 3 months to 5 years from now, depending on the carrier), people generally don't visit insurance websites enough to build any strong opinion about what the UX was like - so as long as it's not spammy like a travel site, it's a fairly fresh game every time they shop for a policy.

worldmerge 4y ago

Do you have an Adblocker on? I just loaded the page with it on and there were legit results. Turned it off and all the page was Ad listings. Edit: seems to be intermittent.

xyst 4y ago

same, I get “scholarly articles” related to “cancer genetics” in addition to conferences edit: have setup a VPN + Pihole dns server + ad blockers on devices themselves